I'd hire a skilled amature carpenter to build a deck or even an addition, not to manuver a derick crane on top of a sky scraper with city traffic below. To get an AB unlimited licsense you need 1080 day's at sea on a vessel with some tonnage on it. That's a lot of weekends. That's the minimum a watch keeper should have on a ship the size of the Bounty.
The Phantom had some land lubb'n board of director's seal there fate. And A young Captain who did'nt have the ball's to take control of his ship.

I agree that there should be minimal requirements for certain positions on a ship, such as the captain of a passenger vessel. But time alone doesn't make a wise, skilled professional. I had one guy on my crew who had 15 years in the electrical trade but had no mechanical aptitude. He was all thumbs. He had to be watched constantly or I'd have a mess on my hands to clean up. BTW, he was also one of the most critical of non-professionals.

In my post, I was replying to the comments on the pro forum calling recreational boaters foolish. All we really know about them is they identify themselves as professionals. So placing a higher degree of importance to what they say over what anyone here says may be an erroneous assumption.

But yes, absolutely, learning in a system that promotes expertise, safety and professionalism is by far preferable to being self-taught.